Friday, 24 September 2010

I began the production part of my task by getting into a pair and going off to take photos for each others magazine covers. We had to take a mininum of 12 mid shot photos as this then made us able to choose from a wide selection and not wasting any time having to take new photos. I chose to take photos of one of my friends agaisnt a white background, as when it came to putting the footage onto Photoshop this would allow me to see easily what i had to cut out. This part of the task was fairly straight forward.

After gathering my photos and uploading them to the computer for the next part of my production i started to edit and create my front cover on Photoshop. I began by cutting out my photo using the Magnetic Lasso tool, which i found a simple task. I then began to create layers and started to add detail to my cover. I added the Masthead and chose to colour it in a lightblue, similar to the school colour. The background i filled my cover in with was just plain black, and the reason for chosing this was that it complimented the two other colour i chose to write in. These colours were, light blue and white so overall i stuck to a three colour palet which was black, blue and white. I had to decide on a font that i was going to put my masthead in. I knew i had to choose something thick so it was eye catching and easy to read but also something that looked quite smart and presentable. After i had picked a font for the Masthead, i then went on to choose to others for the other coverlines that matched well.

So after deciding colours and fonts i then started to use the layers to put my magazine cover together. I added a date, price and bar code to make it look complete. Something i struggled with throughout using Photoshop was forgetting to add a layer with every new thing that i did. Apart from that i feel that i used the program as well as could have as i hadn't had much experience of using it before. The skills that i picked up throughout the production stage were using quite a few of the tools on Photoshop and also how to make my magazine look more proffessional by editing the smallest things. For example making sure that the text is aligned correctly etc. I feel that by doing this task i will have much more knowledge that i can put towards my final product to make as well as i can.

For this task we were asked to create a front cover and a contents page suitable for a school magazine. Included on our magazine had to be a mid shot photo which had to be taken by ourselves. This could be a photo of our self, our someone one else depending on who we wanted to be on the front of our magazine.

The first stage in pre production was to design our front cover on paper. This had to include the photo, each headline and also any extra details. I drew a picture of what i wanted my photo to look like and what expressions i wanted this to include. I also labelled who i wanted my magazine to be aimed at and which type of people would be actually interested in reading my magazine. I thought of many different ideas for my Masthead and finally decided on the name 'Rumour'. The reason i decided to use this name is because i thought that it fitted in well with the concept of a magazine and also the concept of a school.
Skills that i picked up throughout the pre-production process was that my design has to be detailed so i knew exactly what i wanted to do when i got onto creating the cover on Photoshop. I also realised that i had to know what audience i wanted my magazine to be suitable for, so i could then develop coverlines and photos which were appropriate.

Sunday, 19 September 2010

After the Production stage of our task we had one more stage until it was complete. This was the editing of the raw footage we had filmed. I was extremely new to this as i had never used the program that we edited the film on. Although i found that after watching my other group members that were much more familiar with the program i quickly picked up how to cut and edit the footage. We all had an equal share in editing, so this meant that it was done fairly quickly. Whislt editing as a group this made us notice many downfalls that we had when filming. Such as continuity, dead space, and zooming in to much so that the filming looked of a very bad quality. One thing that we found hard in the editing stage was adding music to our clip. The reason for this is that we had to cut it, and then stop it when the dialogue was introduced, and then once again let it play towards the end.

All in all i think that we worked very well as a group for a first time task. I especially think this because we were all very new to each part of the task. I have personally picked up brief editing and filming skills. The roles that i took in the group was a fair amount of filming, a shared amount of editing, helping to choose music, and also creating part of our storyboard. When doing our next task i will be taking all of the errors and mistakes into considersation. I have learnt that filming is definitely not as easy as it looks and even in very simple short clips, slip ups are incredibly easy to see and editing has to be done correctly to make sure that everything runs smoothly.

The production part of our task was to shoot our short film following another groups storyboard. When we began to film, our group did slightly struggle as none of us were confident with using a camera to shoot a small clip like that one we were set. Whilst filming we took into a lot of consideration of where to place the camera and at what level we should be filming at. Problems that we came across were getting the accuracy correct when zooming and moving from one shot to another.

Continuity was particuarly hard as myself and the rest of the group did not realise small factors that effected this. For example walking into one room from another the lighting would change, and also one mistake that we made was having the blinds up, then filming the next clip with the blind down which did create a problem.

The production part of the task i thought was very enjoyable. Skills that i feel i have picked up during this are, that i am going to be able to zoom much more accurately next time i use the camera and also watching out for dead space around characters and objects will be considered. When filming next time i will refer back to the mistakes made in this task, and consider how to change them to create a good final piece.

Thursday, 16 September 2010

We chose to work in a group of four during our task. We had to shoot a short film which had to include, someone walking down a corridor, walking through a door and short peice of dialogue with someone else.

We first of all we had to create a story board. As a group we planned and drew out a story board of our film. When doing this we had to put into consideration which camera angles we were going to be using and did our best to make that clear when creating each shot. It also needed to include continuity, and character postions.

Skills that i have picked up from pre production, is that when creating a story board next time it must be must more detailed and accurate. Also being able to draw accurately isn't a key part of creating a good story board as i have realised they need to be simple and easy to understand.

These were our groups finished storyboards. The details on these have not been made clear enough and minor and major details have been missed out. I realise that when i come to draw a story board for my next piece of work i must make sure that the information is as clear to someone else as it is to me. I now know this from swapping our groups story boards with another and slightly struggling to follow it when doing the practical.

My name is Abbie and I chose to do AS Media as one of my subjects as i'm interested in a range of music, and quite often enjoy to watch films. One of my favourite bands are The Maccabees, and my favourite film genre would have to be comedy. A few of my favourite films under the comedy genre are Superbad, Juno and Role Models. I tend to dislike horror and sci-fi films for the reason that i get bored whilst watching and rarely seem to find them entertaining. Another thing i love is the TV series Prison Break. I do have an interest in fashion, and like to reguarly read magazines such as Elle and Vogue.